How to market a local business through strategic collaboration

When you own a local business, it can be fun and rewarding. But as the saying goes, two heads are better than one. A beneficial way to help market a local business is through a strategic collaboration with someone who’s interested in the same goals. Partnering up can increase revenue and extend the client base — and this kind of local strategic partnership can prove to be a cost-effective relationship that will help both brands grow through cross-promotion.

Sound good? Read on for some helpful tips to market a local business through a strategic collaboration.

How to market a local business through strategic collaboration

Take these three basic steps to market your local business by partnering up:

Understand and communicate competitive advantages

You’ll want to align and being able to communicate mutually beneficial goals and objectives. What advantages will partnering up offer for both local businesses?

Do your due diligence

Don’t skimp when it comes to evaluating prospective strategic partners. Look at the other business’s philosophy and culture as well as its overall capabilities and reputation in the marketplace.

Be open to various partnership options

Alliances can take many forms — a small business with a large business, a minority-owned business with non-minority owned company, a women-owned business with a male-owned company, etc. And there’s nothing wrong with forming a local strategic partnership with a business that share your company’s socioeconomic characteristics. Again, do your due diligence.

Get it in writing

It’s just good business practice to formalize your partnership with a written agreement. Include joint goals and objectives, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, a communication plan and periodic re-evaluation of the arrangement.

Consult the pros

You’re probably not a legal or accounting expert — so find someone who is to consult on your joint venture agreement.

3. Create a marketing plan

To market a local business via strategic collaboration, both participants must come together to discuss the five W’s and one H: who, what, when, where, why and how. These are the building blocks of a marketing plan that can serve as the road map to the results you want.

What would the consumer’s perception and feelings be about the product?

When is this product being introduced?

Where will both local businesses be promoting this product?

Why are these local businesses teaming up to promote this product?

How will the product benefit the customer?

It’s also important to address the big four marketing P’s — price, product, promotion and placement — when you partner up to market a local business:

Price

Make sure that the product is priced fairly for the customer. It might even be worthwhile to offer a special introductory price to entice more prospects to try your products or services.

For example, when Salesforce and Google teamed up in the fall of 2017, Google offered Salesforce customers company-wide G Suite licenses at no additional cost for up to one year. Salesforce benefited with the Google Cloud Platform for a global expansion of the company’s infrastructure. Win-win.

Photo: Salesforce

Product

Ask how your product/service will benefit the customer. It’s important for partnering businesses to offer high-quality products or services that offer a unique selling proposition.

Promotion

Explore a multi-channel strategy to market a local business. Explore promoting your local partnership on each business’s social media platforms, websites, blogs, email marketing campaigns and, if the budget allows, paid media ads. For example:

Announcing in a joint press release the strategic collaboration to consumers
and placing the press release in the newsroom section on both websites and through media distribution.

Appearing as a guest on the other local business’s social media platform and discussing how excited you are to be collaborating with the other business and what services you’re both offering.

Executing a social media contest, like a photo contest featuring the target products or services, complete with dedicated hashtags.

Offering rewards. For example, when the Seattle Seahawks teamed up with Starbucks for the 2017-2018 football season, they wanted to give their fans something special to support the local team. So when Seahawks fans bought a cup of Starbucks coffee, they were rewarded with limited-edition cup sleeves autographed by eight different players.

Placement

Place the product strategically on all promotional platforms. For example, when announcing the collaboration on both websites, put a news header near the top of the page so that consumers can click and read about it — like when McDonald’s announced its collaboration with Disney to help improve the nutritional standards of Happy Meal menus.

On social media outlets Facebook and Twitter, use the cover photo to announce the strategic collaboration, followed by a post.

Photo: McDonald’s Corporation

Have plan, will execute

When you market a local business via strategic collaboration, do not forget to have plans A, B, C and D. Having a back-up plan in case something falls through with the collaboration is crucial to success and protects the business.

Build trust for a long-lasting collaboration.

Trust should start on day one of collaborating with another local business with the same goal: making it a win-win situation for both companies. Honesty, integrity, putting in equal amount of time and professionalism can benefit both businesses for the long haul.

Kateri Wozny is an award-winning journalist with a background in print, digital, TV and radio news. Her work has appeared in outlets such as the Chicago Sun-Times Media Group, Gatehouse Media, Pepperdine University, UC - Santa Barbara and local publications throughout Southern California. She is also the owner and blogger of SoCalShuffle.net, a lifestyle blog in Southern California.
Kateri resides in the Greater Los Angeles area and enjoys writing, shopping, wine tasting, live music and volunteering in her community. Connect with Kateri on LinkedIn.

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